Thursday, March 30, 2017

Retired British Army Colonel Richard Kemp: 'PA leadership talks about peace at the UN, but it educates its children to hate Israel.'
Colonel Richard Camp, who commanded the British forces in Afghanistan from 2003 until 2006, spoke with Channel 20 about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
"Israel, for many years now, has been subject to the greatest slur campaign in the history of the human race," Col. Kemp said.
"Many countries are saying, that if Israel, for example, ceased to 'occupy,' so-called, the 'West Bank', or ceased to have 'settlements' there then that will bring peace, it won't bring peace. All that the Palestinians want is the annihilation of Israel. The Palestinian leadership does not want a two state solution."

I was at the LSE for a book launch in honour of Richard Falk’s new book. The event, was the only university event on the tour not to cancel. It swiftly descended into a festival of Jew hatred. Gilad Atzmon, a notorious Jew baiter, turned up with his equally as disturbed mother, and Pam Arnold (aka Pam Hardyment), another person often caught spitting venom on camera. With the event hosted by ‘as a Jew’ Mary Kaldor, the Jewish members of the audience were caught between Falk and Atzmon. The Jews were blamed for the result. Jews were told to read Holocaust denier David Irving, they were told the Jews were expelled from Nazi Germany for misbehaving, and through all the provocation were ridiculed and shamed for the way they responded. Disturbing and exclusive footage.

Remember the hysteria at the start of March over a wave of bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers and the desecration of graves in Jewish cemeteries?
The wild rhetoric put the blame on white supremacists, neo-Nazis, alt-right racists, anyone coming to the surface in the wake of Trump’s rise to power. This level of Jew-hatred could not be put at the feet of liberal progressives who are wedded to diversity, love, and peace.
One month later the perpetrators of many of the anti-Semitic acts are known to us so it is enlightening to learn who they are and why they did it.
Juan Thompson is an African-American journalist charged with cyber-stalking and a half dozen bomb threats against Jewish targets.
In Arizona, the case of a vandalized menorah twisted into the shape of a swastika was put down to an African-American teenager and some of his gang members.
A 65-year-old Hispanic man from Brooklyn, Pasquale Vargas, was charged with drawing swastikas in Penn Street Station.

Let`s ask some questions. Are there universities in the West Bank and Gaza? If so, who established the universities and when. How are Palestinian universities ranked as compared with their Arab counterparts.
The Ottoman Empire, actually Turkey, a Moslem State, occupied Palestine until 1917. Since Charles William Eliot, the president of Harvard University, who visited the country in 1867, and described the Galilee as a place of emptiness and misery and in his famous book “Innocents Abroad,” Mark Twain recalls not seeing a living soul throughout his journey, unsurprisingly, there were no Arab universities. The Jews, however, established the world famous Technion in Haifa in 1912.
The British controlled Palestine between 1917 and 1948. The Jews immediately established another university, the world famous Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1918. The Arabs? Nothing, as in: no Arab university.
Jordan, an Arab country, illegally occupied Judea and Samaria between 1948 and 1967, renaming this area the West Bank.
During this period, the Jordanians were careful and shrewd enough to forbid and prevent the establishment of any university in the West Bank. Yes, in 1967, when Israel regained Judea and Samaria, there were no universities in the West Bank. NOT ONE! Did anyone academically criticize or boycott Jordan? Of course not. When it comes to Israel, double standards are the order of the day.
Israel recovered Judea and Samaria in 1967. In 1970, Deputy Israeli Premier Yigal Allon, who was then Minister of Education, announced that he had approved the establishment of the first university in Ramallah in principle when approached by West Bank Arab leaders, including Dr. Salem Nashef, Dean of the Tulkarem Agricultural School.

In every generation, one is obligated to see himself as if he had left Egypt.
–The Haggadah
In 1956, millions of Americans flooded cinemas to see the Exodus story brought to life in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. Among those moviegoers were American Jews, who could not help but feel that the film spoke to them, personally and profoundly. When Charlton Heston’s Moses is asked whether he is ashamed upon learning he is not a prince of Egypt but rather a son of slaves, he responds: “If there is no shame in me, how can there be shame for the woman who bore me, or the race that bred me?”
In his book America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story, Bruce Feiler recounts how in the 1950s DeMille had pleaded with Paramount Pictures to make a film about Moses but received only resistance, until its CEO Adolph Zukor, an assimilated Hungarian Jew, rebuked his Jewish colleagues: “We should get down on our knees and say thank you that he wants to make a picture on the life of Moses.” At a time when “many Jews still struggled with assimilation,” Fieler notes, “Moses’s open embrace of his faith was a powerful statement of self-confidence.”
For many Orthodox Jewish immigrants, recently arrived on American shores, assimilation was out of the question. Yet many of them also went to see the film, in the knowledge that there was a deep connection between their own faith and the culture of the American society that they had just joined. This belief was reinforced in the film’s prologue, in which DeMille himself appeared on screen and addressed the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, this may seem an unusual procedure, speaking to you before the picture begins,” DeMille said. “The theme of this picture is whether men ought to be ruled by God’s law or whether they are to be ruled by the whims of a dictator like Rameses. Are men the property of the state, or are they free souls under God? The same battle continues throughout the world today.”
To these religious Jews, recently arrived in America, this message was remarkable; one of the screen’s legendary directors, the man who helped found Hollywood itself by making a film there in 1913, was telling them that America owed its greatness to the Jewish Passover story.
DeMille was right.

Ken Livingstone will find out in a few hours’ time whether he’s been permanently booted out of the Labour party for mouthing off about Hitler. So, how is he spending the hours before the verdict is in? Well, by mouthing off about Hitler – obviously.
Outside the hearing where he will discover his fate, the former Mayor of London has been up to his usual tricks — giving any one who will listen a lecture on why Adolf Hitler was a Zionist. This time, Ken has been explaining how the SS set up training camps for German Jews. Here’s what he said:‘The SS set up training camps so that German Jews, who were going to go there, could be trained to cope with a very different sort of country when they got there. When the Zionist movement asked would the Nazi government stop a Jewish Rabbi from doing their services in Yiddish and make them do it in Hebrew, he agreed to that.
They passed a law that said only the Zionist flag and the swastika are the only flags that could be flown in Germany. And then, of course, they started selling pistols to the underground Jewish army. So you had, right up until the start of the second world war, real collaboration. And when, in July 1937, many senior Nazis gathered at their foreign office saying they should stop sending Jews to…because it could create a Jewish state, in the middle of that meeting a directive comes specifically form Hitler saying no – we will continue with this policy.’
Ken then finished his history lesson by saying that ‘everyone who studies history just knows this is true’. Given that Ken cited Wikipedia in his written submission to the hearing, Mr S isn’t so sure he is the best person to ask. However, one thing is for sure: whether he manages to cling on or not, Ken is determined not to learn his lesson.

Most Jews are cast by Livingstone as enemies of the Party, like Tories and like ‘Blairites’. In a reversal of the Macpherson Principle, Livingstone denounces the community which says it experiences racism as dishonest and self-serving. In a perversion of the Macpherson Principle, he offers a series of ‘as a Jew’ references from the tiny minority who support him; they parade their Jewish identities in their eagerness to give evidence against the mainstream of the Jewish community.
Livingstone’s defence relies on a stubborn refusal to allow that anti-Semitism is possible on the left. He refuses to make a distinction between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel; nothing is considered anti-Semitic, everything is considered legitimate criticism.
For Livingstone, these denials and counter-accusations in the face of the issue of anti-Semitism define him as being on the side of the angels; anyone who sees it differently is accused of making ‘vile, malicious, and public smears’. Anti-Semitic speech is defended; those who oppose it are portrayed as enemies of the Party.
On the question of Hitler ‘supporting Zionism’, Livingstone stamps his feet like a very little boy and clings onto the insistence that he did nothing wrong. But we know that Zionism was a response to anti-Semitism while Hitler was a supporter of anti-Semitism; Zionism sought to create a means of Jewish self-defence while Hitler sought to murder every last Jew. He was not a supporter of Zionism.
The overwhelming majority of Jewish people identify, in one way or another, with Israel. Livingstone’s career-long campaign of accusing Jews of being like Nazis is disgraceful and anti-Sememitic; it done in the full knowledge that this accusation is experienced as Jew-baiting.

The woman who was once the most prominent Muslim politician in Britain, Baroness Warsi, was back in the headlines today with an interview in which she called for British volunteers for the Israeli army to be treated as foreign fighters and prosecuted on their return to the UK.
Lady Warsi, who resigned from the government as Foreign Office minister during the Gaza War in 2014, saying its policy on Gaza was “morally indefensible”, has now published a book, “The Enemy Within”, which was launched on Wednesday night.
The one-time chairman of the Conservative Party gave an interview to Middle East Eye (MEE) to launch the book, in which she said that there were two different narratives, relating to Muslims who went to fight for non-state groups and militant organisations, and British citizens who volunteered to fight for Israel.
She complained of a “loophole designed to protect Israel” and said that “the only reason we allow the loophole to exist is because of the IDF, because we are not brave enough to say, if you hold British citizenship, you make a choice. You fight for our state only. That has to go out strong [sic].”
Those who went out to fight for groups, Lady Warsi claimed, were prosecuted on their return. She felt the same should apply to those who fought for state armies such as Israel’s.
Public debate, she believed, focused “exclusively on demanding loyalty from British Muslims, the same rule should apply to all. Let’s shut down this loophole. If you don’t fight for Britain, you do not fight.”

Ken Loach, the award-winning filmmaker, has claimed a decision to cancel a talk by activist Jackie Walker after an intervention by the Episcopalian Bishop of Edinburgh was the result of action by “Zionist individuals” aiming to stop criticism of the Israeli state.
Mr Loach, a vociferous critic of Israel in the past, also claimed that “exaggerated and spurious” allegations of antisemitism were being used against pro-Palestinian campaigners in Scotland.
The I, Daniel Blake director, who is a supporter of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, joined actress Miriam Margolyes and Scottish activists to sign an open letter published by the Scottish Herald on Tuesday calling on the Episcopalian Bishop John Armes to the reverse the decision to stop Ms Walker from appearing at a Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign event at a church hall in Edinburgh on Monday.
In the letter, Mr Loach and the other signatories wrote: “ We regard this as a serious breach of the right to freedom of speech in Scotland.
"It is now becoming clear that Zionist individuals and organisations in Scotland are working hard to stifle all debate on the war crimes and human rights abuses of the Israeli State.
"Bishop Armes should be aware that Zionists comprise only a small minority of Scottish Jews and certainly do not represent the Jewish community in Scotland."

As for the traditional good news stories, this time they trod upon each other’s heels, so fast they followed. I was struck by the number of Muslim good news stories, of course. Today’s Muslim good news stories refers to a commemoration on Westminster bridge. As the BBC news story relates:
‘Police officers and hundreds of members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association are among those expected to join together on Westminster Bridge to mark the attack.’
Thus ticking two boxes at once. Yes, that’s right, the most persecuted and peaceful sect within Islam are once again front and centre, reminding the public of the good that Muslims can do and simultaneously (though doubtless with the best intentions) helping to obscure part of the problem. One presumes that the Salafi and Wahhabi Youth Associations of the UK are busy. And perhaps the Iranian groups which hold the annual ‘Al-Quds day’ hatefest in London only have one day’s marching in them each year.
But it isn’t just Muslim good news stories that have proliferated this time, but almost any good news stories. I am increasingly struck by this. I recently read an interview with a Jewish student who mentioned in passing how important it is to make ‘something good’ come from the Holocaust. My reaction then – as always – is ‘why?’ Whose reaction to the industrial-scale slaughter of millions of people is ‘How can I feel better about things in the wake of this? I mean, this whole Holocaust thing is one serious downer.’ A similar scent is in the air in the wake of the Westminster terror attack. In studio discussions among others in recent days I have been very struck by the popularity of any sentiment which talks about the ‘good’ that has already, or must, come from this.
Again, this seems to me a very strange, self-absorbed and unhealthy way to approach the world. Three people were killed when they were mown down by a man in a car. Many others were wounded. PC Keith Palmer was then stabbed to death. Whose reaction to this is ‘we must get some good out of this?’ And not just within days, but within hours? Tales of ‘unity’, and ‘coming together’ and so on are all very well. But the desperation for them, and the desperation to report them leave an unpleasant taste to me at any rate. Perhaps the swiftness of the news cycle’s turn from tragedy to good news in hours is the reason that only a week on from the attacks, and with the dead still not buried, the attack feels like it’s old news.

"The kafir's blood is halal for you, so shed it." That's just one of the catchier headlines in a recent issue of Rumiyah, a slick online magazine published by the Islamic State group.
A "kafir," of course, is a non-Muslim. "Halal" means religiously permissible. As for Rumiyah, that's Arabic for Rome, one of the Christian capitals that the leaders of Islamic State hope to conquer. (The other great Christian capital, Constantinople, fell to soldiers of the caliphate in 1453. It's now called Istanbul.)
Was Khalid Masood -- the convert to Islam who last week staged a terrorist attack at London's Houses of Parliament, seat and symbol of British democracy -- a reader of Rumiyah? If so, he might have been inspired by an article late last year urging people like him to do precisely what he did: drive a vehicle into a crowd of non-Muslims, "smashing their bodies with the vehicle's strong outer frame while advancing forward -- crushing their heads, torsos, and limbs under the vehicle's wheels and chassis." Masood then exited the vehicle and stabbed a police officer -- a tactic used frequently against Israelis in recent years.
The Western response to such atrocities has become ritualistic. The police say they are investigating and are uncertain about the perpetrator's motive. Foreign heads of state condemn the attack, offer condolences and pledge solidarity. Leaders of the nation attacked defiantly announce that life will go on and no one will be intimidated.
Next, comes the debate over whether Islam should be implicated or vindicated. In this instance, a conservative MP, Michael Tomlinson, asked Prime Minister Theresa May whether she agreed that the term "Islamic terror" was inappropriate.

There is no more evidence that Jews are responsible for economic or social inequality in contemporary America, than there was for Jews being responsible for any of the other crimes that formed the basis for traditional blood libels. Indeed, Jews disproportionately support racial equality and other liberal causes. Most successful Jews, like most successful people of other religions and ethnicities, earned this success by hard work, not special privilege.
The linking of unrelated "victimizations," despite their tenuous connections, is reflective of a broader trend in hard-left politics, whereby increasingly, radical activists demand that the demonization of "Zionists"—often used as a euphemism for Jews – be included, indeed featured, in the package of causes that must to be embraced by anyone claiming the label of "progressive." Lumping seemingly disparate groups under the "umbrella of oppression" leads to the forming of alliances between causes that at best, have nothing to do with each other, and at worst, are averse to one another's stated mission. Their only common feature is that to join, they must demonize the nation state of the Jewish people.
The essence of anti-Semitism is the bigoted claim that if there is a problem, then Jews must be its cause. Hitler started by blaming Jews for Germany's economic downturn. Today, many hard-left activists explicitly or implicitly blame Jews and Zionists for many of the evils of the world. All decent people must join in calling out intersectionality for what it is: a euphemism for anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti- Israel bigotry. Exposing and condemning "intersectionality" for the bigotry that it represents is critical to ensuring that those repressive extremists, who falsely claim the mantle of progressivism, are not able to hijack important liberal causes in support of their own bigoted agenda.

The report this week that organizers of the Copenhagen Jazz Festival refused to add an artist from Israel to their lineup should have been nothing more than a repeat of similar refusals in the past. This, of course, was not the first time an Israeli has faced a boycott. The honest and direct explanation festival organizers provided, however, was rare and therefore shocking.
"For political reasons, we are not presenting artists from Israel," the message read in black and white. It has been a while since we have seen such vitriol, which is comparable to a punch in the face. It would be no exaggeration to say that this outburst of hate is reminiscent of the "whites only" signs in the days of South African apartheid.
Ever since the Western world adopted the principles of political correctness, the rules of accepted discourse have changed beyond recognition. Entire groups once accustomed to being the subject of libel and slander were now suddenly protected. Now, anyone who dares to speak ill of women, those with dark skin, immigrants, religious minorities or others is publicly shamed. Of course, hatred of the other has not disappeared, but the outward expressions are for a large part hidden from the public sphere. There is only one exception -- the hatred of Jews. It seems one can in fact exhibit attitudes of contempt and disdain toward Jewish individuals or the Jewish people in general, as long as you use the correct terminology: Instead of the word "Jew," you need to use the word "Israeli."

Lawmakers will no longer be allowed to accept funding for overseas trips by organizations that support the movement to boycott Israel, that deny the Holocaust, or that call for the destruction of Israel.
The head of the Knesset House Committee, Yaakov Kisch (Likud), has laid out the new guidelines for the Knesset’s Ethics Committee, telling it to block MKs from receiving funding for overseas trips from certain types of groups, Channel 2 reported Wednesday.
Until now the Knesset has approved trips almost automatically. The Ethics Committee is only supposed to ensure lawmakers are not being funded for private business trips.
However, after Channel 2 reported in December that the committee had approved a trip by MKs to Australia despite the fact that the bogus organization that ostensibly invited them does not exist or even have a website, the House Committee met to discuss the role of the Ethics Committee.

Georgetown University's Qatar campus is set to host Sami Al-Arian for a lecture tonight in Doha. According to a news release from the school's Middle Eastern Studies Student Association, Al-Arian is a "civil rights activist" who hopes to challenge students to "make it a better, and more equitable and peaceful world."
Those are charitable descriptions for Al-Arian, a documented member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's Majlis Shura, or board of directors. According to the Islamic Jihad's bylaws, which law enforcement agents found during searches of Al-Arian's home and offices, there can be "No Peace without Islam." The group's objective is to create "a state of terror, instability and panic in the souls of Zionists and especially the groups of settlers, and force them to leave their houses."
It's an agenda Al-Arian took to heart. Following a double suicide bombing in 1995 that killed 19 Israelis, Al-Arian solicited money from a Kuwaiti legislator. "The latest operation, carried out by the two mujahideen who were martyred for the sake of God, is the best guide and witness to what they believing few can do in the face of Arab and Islamic collapse at the heels of the Zionist enemy..." he wrote.
"I call upon you to try to extend true support of the jihad effort in Palestine so that operations such as these can continue, so that the people do not lose faith in Islam and its representatives..." he wrote. Four years earlier, he spoke at a fundraiser in Cleveland, introduced as the head of the "active arm of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine."

The mayor of the second-largest city in the Netherlands is refusing to block a conference by a pro-Hamas group, despite warnings from Dutch Jewish leaders and political figures that the event could encourage antisemitism and embolden terrorists.
The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), which is regarded by the Israeli and German governments as a support group for Hamas, plans to hold its annual “Palestinians in Europe” conference on April 15 in Rotterdam.
Netherlands Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs told JNS.org that he is “very concerned” that the conference “will incite antsemitism or pro-terrorist sentiment” in the country, particularly among the country’s rapidly growing community of ethnic Turks. Jacobs said that the PRC’s activities are “just like the ‘Denk’ party, whose three seats in the new parliament look small, but is the beginning, God forbid, of a direction which we don’t want to go.” The Denk party, which chiefly represents Dutch citizens of Turkish origin, is harshly anti-Israel.
On March 11, a mob of militant Dutch Turks yelled “Cancer Jews” as they rioted outside the Turkish consulate in Amsterdam. They were protesting the Dutch government’s refusal to let a Turkish cabinet minister campaign in the country for an upcoming referendum in Turkey.

It has from the beginning been designed to denounce Israel as an illegal state, all under the cover of supposed neutral academic inquiry.
It is not, however, in the least surprising that an Irish government would pass a motion like that so wholeheartedly. After all, links with the PLO and other terrorist groups were connived at or even encouraged by the Irish government itself.
The conference put itself in the welcoming hands of the city council, a body thoroughly in agreement with the aims of the event, to find spurious legal arguments for the delegitimization and eventual destruction of Israel.

“Killing of a Hamas Leader Could Signal a New Conflict With Israel” is the headline over a New York Times news article.
Well, it “could,” or it could not, but the Times is speculating away nonetheless.
The more newsworthy aspect of the article concerns the steps that the Hamas-led government in Gaza is taking to try to prevent the escape of the assassin.
The Times reports:Gaza’s Interior Ministry has taken the extraordinary measure of closing border crossings with Egypt and Israel to anyone except for patients needing medical treatment, the families of prisoners in Israeli jails or ministers in the Palestinian government…. The authorities also closed Gaza’s small port on the Mediterranean coast, barring fishermen from setting sail, as there was speculation that the assassin, or assassins, may have escaped by sea.
Well, that will come as interesting — and new — news to New York Times readers, who are regularly being falsely told by their newspaper that Gaza is under an “Israeli blockade.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Israeli border guards shot dead a woman who attempted to stab them outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City. No border guards were injured in the attack.
This was The Australian‘s headline for its story taken from the Associated Press:

UPDATE
Shortly following the publication of this post and direct communication with The Australian, the headline was amended to the following:"Israeli police shoot dead female attacker"
Thanks to The Australian for responding so quickly.

UPDATE: Following this post, we reached out to the Ben-Gurion Archives. The archivist we spoke to never heard of the quote. We also spoke to Zaki Shalom, Senior Research Fellow at The Institute for National Security Studies, and author of Ben-Gurion’s Political Struggles, 1963-1967: A Lion in Winter. Shalom also never heard of the quote.
Additionally, we contacted Ben-Gurion biographer Anita Shapira, who told us in an email that the quote seemed “implausible”.
Finally, we emailed Hirsh Goodman, who stands by his recollection, but declined, when asked, to provide any further details on the interview, such as the name of the radio station or the name of the interviewer.

Two British teens who tried to steal items from the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum appeared in a Polish court and were fined.
The teens, both 19 and from Hertfordshire in England, were 17 in June 2015 when the incident occurred.
Museum guards stopped them while they were on a trip with the private Perse School in Cambridge. The teens were found to have hidden in their bags fragments of a hair clipper, glass from the barracks and buttons taken from the area of the former Birkenau camp called “Canada,” where during the war stood warehouses filled with items looted from Jews.
The teens initially pleaded guilty and were levied a fine as punishment. They were allowed to return to Cambridge.
Later, the teens’ attorneys withdrew their admission of guilt, saying they were not aware that the items had special cultural significance.

Flyers accusing Jews of creating anti-Semitic hoaxes were left in neighborhoods of Scottsdale, Arizona.
The flyers reference the fact that a teen in Israel, believed to be Jewish, was arrested in connection with the threats made to nearly 150 Jewish community centers and Jewish institutions in the U.S. “Why do Jews feel the need to create fake anti-Semitism hoaxes?” the flyer reads, and directs people to the website of the neo-Nazi and white supremacist Daily Stormer website.
The flier also features a cartoon of a man with a very large and slightly hooked nose wearing a hat and trench coat spray painting a swastika on the side of a building with the caption “Hey Rabbi. Watcha’ Doing?”
ADL Arizona tweeted a photo of one of the flyers and said: “We r disgusted by anti-Semitic flyers left in Scottsdale neighborhoods this morning. We r reaching out 2 law enforcement.”

Nathan Fielder, a Canadian comedian, is known best for his Comedy Central show Nathan for You.
But the 34-year-old Vancouver native held a slightly different event this week, setting up a temporary “pop-up” store for his outdoor apparel brand with a Holocaust awareness theme – and donating $150,000 to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Center.
It all started back in 2015, when Fielder was still regularly wearing a jacket made by Taiga, a Vancouver-based sportswear company; he can be seen in it in many of his show’s early episodes.
But then Fielder, who is Jewish, discovered that the company had published a tribute in its catalogue in 2001 to Doug Collins, a Holocaust-denying Canadian journalist. The company wrote that the notorious Holocaust denier should be “admired, however grudgingly, for his lion’s courage in asserting and defending the rights of free opinion and free speech in these wimpy politically correct times.”
Fielder stopped wearing the jackets and launched his own outerwear company, called Summit Ice. According to the company’s website, Summit Ice is a “not-for-profit company dedicated to producing quality outdoor apparel and raising awareness of the Holocaust.”

It’s true: The UN just released its annual Human Development Report, which ranks where people live long, healthy lives (i.e. the countries that are best to live in). Analyzing 195 countries across a number of categories such as life expectancy, education, gender equality, and financial wealth, here are the countries that scored the highest:
That’s Israel in 19th place, ahead of Luxembourg, France and Belgium.
It makes sense; we already saw this month that Israel ranked 9th out of 163 countries in the Bloomberg Global Health Index, and 11th out of 150 countries in the World Happiness Report.
But it is surprising, given this is a UN report.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and his wife, Nechama, held a state dinner Wednesday night for the President of the Slovak Republic, Andrei Kiske.
President Kiske said, "When I was 27, I moved to the US. My wife stayed behind with the children, and when I did not find work as an engineer I found work at a gas station [instead]. My boss was a Ukrainian Jew I saw how the Jewish community was united. And when I returned home to Slovakia, I also asked myself: why not become a Jew?"
"I truly admired this community and it had a great impact on my life. When I visit here I see this community, and the greatest inspiration I get here is from the way you talk about your problem - by working with passion to find a solution for those problems. You work hard and you know you can do it," he added.
Kiske continued: "The big challenge is how to make these dreams a reality. What can we do when we see that the world is becoming more radical, more dangerous? And the answer is that we have to stand together behind our values."
At the end of his speech, the President of Slovakia invited President Rivlin to visit his country to "discuss our values together, for the sake of the young people in both countries."

Israel has the second highest concentration of cyber-defense companies in the world after the United States, a new report shows.
The report by New York data firm CB Insights lists the nine most influential sectors of cyber-security innovation in 2017 and the 30 startups that have pioneering technology and the potential to shape the future of cyber-security.
The tech companies were assessed on a number of categories, including quantum encryption, deception security, automobile security, Internet of Things security, cyber insurance, mobile security, autonomous systems, critical infrastructure security and predictive intelligence.
Three Israel-based companies are mentioned in the report.

Call it chutzpah or call it marketing savvy – either way, Israel’s Plant Production and Marketing Board believes Chinese consumers are a ripe market for the easy-peeling Jaffa Orri premium mandarin orange.
Food historians pinpoint China as one of the first places to cultivate mandarin oranges (Citrus reticulate) about 4,000 years ago. The name of this sweet little fruit is taken from a group of high-ranking public officials in imperial China who wore orange robes and hats decorated with a button that resembled the fruit.
So why would China want Israeli mandarins? There are at least three very good reasons.
First, though China is the number one grower of citrus worldwide (20 million tons in 2016), it also imported 21,000 tons of mandarin oranges in the 2015-16 season, an increase of 10 percent over the previous year.

Israel’s defense exports in 2016 totaled $6.5 billion, a 14% increase compared with $5.7 billion in 2015, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday.
Data released by the ministry's International Defense Cooperation Authority showed some 20% of defense exports involved companies upgrading airplanes and avionics systems, optoelectronics, missiles, rockets, and air defense systems.
The report noted that Asian and Pacific nations continued to be a primary market for Israel's defense industry, with deals worth $2.6 billion signed throughout 2016, marking a $300 million increase from 2015.
An increase in defense exports was also noted in the European, North American, Latin American and African markets.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Michel Ben-Baruch, who heads the International Defense Cooperation Authority, told the financial daily Globes that "the growth in defense exports reflects the global emergence from recession, especially in European and North American countries, which has resulted in an increase in defense budgets in response to growing defense challenges, following years of worldwide defense budget cuts."

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French children's magazine Youpi published this in its latest edition. The translation is "We call these 197 countries state...

Hasbys!

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